Republican lawmakers from the National Council of State Legislatures, who consider the law a violation of states' rights, took their complaints to the White House in November, where they got a chilly reception.

Now, several say they will press their case in their home states. A Republican legislator has introduced a bill that would prohibit Utah authorities from complying with the law or accepting the $100 million it would bring the state. Half a dozen other state legislatures have voted to study similar action.

Accountability
The law requires public schools to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward the ultimate goal of 100 percent student proficiency in language arts and math. It establishes up to 40 tripwires that schools must clear to meet state-defined AYP performance and participation benchmarks: percentage of students who pass state language arts and math tests and percentage of students who took the tests. (Attendance will factor into Utah's AYP measurements next year, and graduation rates will count for subgroups beginning in 2007.) The number of tripwires applicable to each school depends on the number of demographic subgroups at each school. The more diverse the school, the more tripwires apply. Under the law, failure to clear a single one means the school doesn't make AYP.

The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the supression (sic) of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is preservative of the whole. John Peter Zenger (1697-1746)

"Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation". John F. Kennedy